Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition with Naoki Fuse from October 20 to November 2. The exhibition is Fuse’s challenge to present viewers his question towards the core value of photography. Most of the works will be in colour, selected from the works taken since the beginning of his photography career until now.

We live in the world and our own consciousness. After meeting various people and experiencing all kinds of feelings and thoughts, life comes to an end. Like how we realize we are alive when we are being kept alive, we realize we are seeing when something is being shown to us. Our self consciousness exists for as long as while we are alive, along with our body, spirit, mind and emotions.

I have made a “creature” using photography - a medium that can present to us what we have seen in the past, something we were not meant to able to see again by our eyes. People say photography only shows the appearance of things and what we can perceive, but I am interested in people’s thoughts and emotions, their personal history and what they are carrying with them inside. The appearance of a person is a mask but the accumulation is within. These things are not absolute. I want to present what everyone is carrying in their minds, including myself, and I find it meaningful to incubate the “creature” through my conversation with the photographs and other beings.

In this exhibition, I am incorporating two different kinds of recollection into one - the feeling when one is reminded of the disappearing and forgetting of a being, and when photographs taken aimlessly without stories are being given a new role.

It would be my great pleasure if the viewers felt “something” from my photographs and enjoyed looking at them. I would like to thank my parents, people I have met, and people who have taught me about photography.

ー Naoki Fuse

Naoki Fuse | Born in Hyogo, Japan, Fuse started photography in 2006. Fuse met a high monk in Mount Hiei when he was lost in life, which has given him a strong influence. His work “Shogyōmujō”  (meaning “Impermanence of worldly things”) was nominated for the Kimura Ihei Award in 2009. In 2015 his photography exhibition “Mirror and a Bonfire” was held at Zen Foto Gallery, accompanied by a publication under the same title. His exhibitions were also held in Nikon Salon (Shinjuku and Osaka) in the same year. Fuse has participated in Kyotographie KG+ through Gallery Main in 2017. He is currently based in Kyoto and actively travels between Kansai and Tokyo.